Supermarket collapsed in Latvia

The Latvian president has described the collapse of a supermarket in the capital Riga as “murder”.

Andris Berzins said many defenseless people had been killed in “our own made disaster”, and called for foreign experts to investigate what happened.

Fifty-four people have died since part of the roof collapsed on Thursday, and at least seven people remain missing.

Late on Saturday afternoon, the last remaining section of the roof caved in, causing panic in the surrounding area.

Officials have said soil and materials from a garden being built on the roof of the shop may have caused Thursday’s collapse.

Latvia has begun three days of national mourning for the deadliest disaster since the former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991.

“These three days of mourning are very necessary to go from the mindset of helplessness to rethinking what each of us has done so that we can act in practical manner, because this is an event where we must clearly say that this is a large scale murder of many defenseless people and act accordingly,” President Berzins told public LTV broadcaster.

He said an investigation should be held at “maximum speed”.

And he went on to say: “While not undermining the professionalism of our builders, I believe that we should call upon international expertise which is in no way connected with our construction business.

“We cannot call it a natural accident, because nature wasn’t involved. The evening was calm and silent with a little fog. This is our own made disaster.”